


I try to picture me without you but I can't

by Khashana



Series: Immortals [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety, Canon Compliant through 4.9, Canon Jewish Character, Canon-Typical Cissexism, Contains Hockey RPF, Didn’t Know They Were Dating, Drinking, Dumbasses, Friends to Lovers, Lesbian Character, M/F Friendship, Multi, Panic Attacks, Slow Burn, Trans Female Character, Transphobia, april goes so far as to say, but written by somebody who doesn’t watch the Pens, casual cissexism tho not malicious & they get schooled, oblivious boys, this begins Ransom/March but ends up as R/H and M/A, yes from your faves, yes of real actual NHL players, your faves also repeatedly forget that bisexuality is a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 16:37:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17389880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khashana/pseuds/Khashana
Summary: April and Holster become friends in junior year and help each other navigate the perils of love. It might have been easier if Holster had realized that’s what they were doing, but these things can’t be rushed. Featuring the immortal wisdom of Penguins RPF and Fall Out Boy.This fic is completely written.





	1. Junior Year

**Author's Note:**

> The monster is finished! Thanks to tumblr users spockoandjimjim, beautifullights1, deadlypenguin-lackingknees, and skate-gays for making sure I wrote Holster believably and respectfully.
> 
>  
> 
> If you spot any more instances where the tense changes on me, please point it out!

Holster’s had better days.

While Ransom and March are making eyes at each other, Holster’s like 90% sure he’s struck out with April. She’s not impressed by him, and mostly she just seems irritated, like she doesn’t want to be there at all.

And kegsters just aren’t as fun without Ransom. But it’s hardly as though he’s going to deprive his best bro of pussy just because he isn’t getting any. He entertains vague thoughts of trying to find someone else, but there’s not really a nice way to be like, “welp, you two have fun fucking, you have fun being a third wheel,” and just, like, vanishing on them. He’s starting to wonder if it will be more or less awkward to do it now as opposed to after Ransom and March disappear when Ransom and March do actually disappear and the choice is taken from him.

April sighs, gusty and irritated, as soon as Ransom and March are up the stairs and out of earshot.

“Weren’t planning on getting ditched, huh?” Holster asks her, trying to make conversation.

“I don’t know why I even go to these,” says April. “Either she gets some and she leaves me here alone, or she doesn’t and she mopes about it.”

Holster shrugs unhelpfully. “You don’t ever try to pick up?” It does seem like the ideal solution here.

April cracks a small smirk, the closest thing to a smile he’s seen from her yet, and says, “Bro, can you keep a secret?” Holster crosses his heart solemnly. “I’m like, super fucking gay.”

“That would make it more difficult,” says Holster, and internally chastises himself for wasting his time trying to pick up a lesbian. Then he frowns. “It’s Samwell, though. It can’t be that difficult to find a girl who likes pussy.”

“Who likes girls,” corrects April.

“Huh?”

“Someone who likes girls. Not just pussy.”

Holster is starting to feel like he’s missing something very obvious.

“...what’s the difference?”

“Oh my god,” says April. “Are you seriously going to tell me you’ve never heard of transgender people?” Now Holster definitely feels like an idiot.

“Ohhh.” Then, “Wait, are you...?”

“Nah, dude,” says April. “I’m just not about that transphobia, yo.”

Holster nods. It takes him a minute to remember what his original point was.

“So, like, you know there’s a Samwell LGBT Athletics Association, right?”

She must, she’s a volleyball player.

“I’m not out,” says April quietly.

“Oh,” says Holster again. Then, “Thank you for trusting me. Do you wanna go play flip cup?” he offers instead. April considers him.

“What the hell. Why not.”

They’re both pretty sober for this late into a kegster, and they beat everyone but Lardo.

As it turns out, Ransom doesn’t get any either. Holster heads up to their room once he sees March threading her way through the crowd, ready to leave. April is at her side in an instant. He heads up the stairs and finds Ransom sitting on Holster’s bed, staring into space and fully dressed.

“What’s up, bro?” asks Holster.

“She changed her mind,” says Ransom, giving him a confused look. “Like, she was all about it up until I started getting her pants off, and then she was like, she freaked. Started saying she was sorry, she couldn’t, and then it was like she couldn’t get away fast enough.”

“Huh,” says Holster. “Sounds like a personal hangup.”

“Yeah, I guess?” says Ransom. “I’m thinking really hard about if it was anything I did, and unless I’m totally missing something...” He trails off and shakes his head. “Maybe she’s a virgin and she realized she’s not ready to lose it yet after all.”

That can’t be right, Holster thinks, after April’s comments about ‘either she gets some or she mopes’, but he feels kind of uncomfortable relating that, like fourth-hand is too many degrees removed to be reliable information. And maybe April was wrong, and she just thinks March is getting laid and not just making out.

 

Ransom spots March and April across the quad the next day and drags Holster over. He stops a good five feet away from March, who looks really nervous all of a sudden.

“Hey,” he says awkwardly. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay? And if I did something, I’m really sorry?”

March makes a choked noise and grabs for April’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “It wasn’t you,” she promises. Holster sees April wince, and when he looks down, he can see that March’s knuckles are white. He locks eyes with April, but he’s never been the quickest thinker and he doesn’t know the words he needs to make this better. 

April does, though. She tugs on March’s hand, and when March looks at her, says, “You don’t have to tell him.”

“No,” says Ransom quickly. “No, you totally don’t.”

“I want to,” says March quietly. She laughs a little. “I’m just really freaking scared.” 

“Hey,” says Ransom. “Whatever it is, I promise to be cool.” He stops and grimaces. “Well, actually, I have hella anxiety, so I guess I shouldn’t promise that. But I’m not gonna be, like, mean or anything, okay? Worst it can be is awkward.”

“I’m transgender,” says March, and Holster thinks, _ohhh, that explains a lot._

“Oh,” says Ransom. “So like, you have a…”

“A dick, yeah,” says March, looking like she’s being marched to her execution.

“Okay,” says Ransom. “Okay. I’m gonna need to process that.”

“What’s to process?” snaps April. “She’s still a girl.”

Ransom flinches beside him, and Holster says, “Hey, no, he’s being literal. He needs to work through everything, see if anything’s changed, and reorganize in his brain. Not, like, _recategorize_ you, but just, like, there’s a new stack of books in the library that he needs to put away in his head, and he wants to do it without hurting you by accident.” He can feel Ransom relax a little. April offers up a small smile.

“That’s fair. Sorry I snapped at you, dude.” Holster breathes a sigh of relief that the new metaphor he came up with on the spot seems to have made sense to everyone.

Ransom chirps him about it once they part, though.

“There’s a library in my head, now? Is it getting waterlogged in the coral reef?”

“I didn’t _mix_ the metaphors,” grumbles Holster. “Did you want me to say you had a new, uh, school of fish to sort into the reef? And then spend like half an hour explaining that?”

Ransom laughs and shoves him in the shoulder. “Library’s good, dude,” he promises. “What’s a coral reef made up of, anyway? I don’t think it’s fish.”

“ _You’re_ the bio major.”

“Not, like, plant biology. Or ocean biology. Hey Siri, what’s a coral reef made of?”

“Here’s what I found on the web for ‘what’s a coral reef made of’,” says Siri.

“Hey, cool, it’s an animal. Like, little tiny animals and their calcium carbonate home.”

“Neat.”

 

Ransom does his processing, and Holster as usual gets a front-row seat. Even though it’s winter break, and Ransom has to actually call him to think out loud at him.

“I’m still, like, attracted to her?” says Ransom one night over FaceTime. “I’m just still worried, like, I’m your basic bro, and there’s this whole new level of shit I have to be careful about, and I’m like, positive I’m going to fuck it up.”

Holster feels that. “Yeah, I was talking to April about lesbians, and I said girls who like pussy, and she pointed out that not all girls have pussies.” Too late, he hopes Rans doesn’t ask him why he was discussing lesbians with April.

Rans doesn’t. “See, that’s what I’m talking about. I don’t know what I don’t know.”

“You’ve got this, dude,” says Holster bracingly. “It’s just research, right? There’s gotta be blog posts about it. And if you’re up for a lecture slash rant, I bet Shitty knows something about it.”

“Right.” Ransom nods. “Thanks, bro.”

“You must really like her if you’re this worked up about it,” says Holster. Ransom flails dramatically.

“See, that’s another thing, I like her fine, but I’m not, like, in love with her? But also it’s like basic fucking human decency to try not to hurt people even if you’re not gonna marry them? And in this case that’s just gonna take a lot of extra work. But I keep thinking that’s gonna make it sound like a declaration of intent and next thing I know I’ve convinced this girl I’m like…I don’t know.”

“Maybe don’t become a gender studies major over this,” says Holster. “It shouldn’t be that hard to find a ‘what every bro should know before dating a trans girl’ kind of thing.”

It isn’t, and Ransom sends him a ton of tumblr posts and Cosmopolitan articles over winter break. A lot of it’s variations on what April told him, about expanding your language to include trans people, and how it doesn’t make you gay to like trans girls and the other way around. Some stuff is familiar from Shitty-rants on being a good ally like avoiding fetishizing them and not making them explain basic stuff about being trans. There’s also some stuff about penis repulsion that Holster doesn’t actually think _he_ needs to be reading. He doesn’t really want to imagine Ransom having sex in quite that much detail.

 

They go back to campus. Ransom invites March over, and Holster doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. He never does when Ransom hooks up but he doesn’t, and there’s nothing interesting going on, or anything important due. So he ends up in the library, sitting with his macro book open on his lap but not even pretending to read it, and that’s where he is when he sees April, who appears to be doing much the same thing. She’s trying to read, she keeps glancing at her book, but then she gets distracted and checks her phone like she’s waiting for a text. 

Holster folds up his macro book and goes over to her. 

“Hey,” he says lamely.

“Yo,” says April. “What’s up?”

“Ransom’s with March, so I’m just kind of…” He waves a hand around to demonstrate.

“Wandering aimlessly and waiting for them to be done so you can chill with your best friend some more?” she fills in. “Cause that’s what I’m doing.”

“If you weren’t gay, it would totally make our lives easier to double date,” Holster says, and is proud of himself for remembering to say that in a low enough voice that no one’s going to overhear. April still glances around. 

“We could still be friends,” she offers, though she doesn’t sound excited about it. 

“Partners in sexile?” suggests Holster, and she cracks a grin at last. 

“Yeah, sure, dude. You got any interests besides beer pong and hockey and…” She squints at his book. “Economics?”

“I rule at Mario Party,” he offers, and April looks interested for the first time since he’s met her.

“Yeah? Bet you aren’t better than me.”

“You’re on,” says Holster. He stands up and jerks his head toward the Haus. “Wanna find out?”

“They’re at your place, right?” says April, frowning. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“They’re in the attic. There’s still the rest of the Haus, and the gaming console’s at the TV.”

“Right. I forgot somehow that you live in a frat house for a second.” She looks uncertain. “D’you think it looks too much like I’m keeping tabs on her?”

“Tell her the truth. We met at the library and I challenged you to a game, I’ll back you up,” promises Holster. She nods, and gathers her stuff.

He is actually better than her, but not by much, and after she demands two rematches, she scrapes out a win, punching the air with both fists. Holster high-fives her.

“This calls for pie,” he decides. 

“To be fair,” says Shitty, lounging on the armchair and texting, “most things call for pie when there’s this regular a supply of pie.”

“Can’t argue with that,” says Holster, and leads April into the kitchen to rummage around in the fridge. “There’s a slice left of blueberry, half a maple apple, and a third of cherry.”

“Maple apple?” asks April. “This I gotta try.”

“It’s Jack’s favorite,” Holster explains, and serves her a slice. He contemplates not taking the last slice of blueberry and does it anyway. “This one’s mine.”

“Where do they come from?” asks April curiously, and so Holster has to tell her all about Bitty, and she tells him how much she misses her grandmother’s baking, and they end up griping about the quality of dessert in the dining hall.

“Their peach tastes like it was made with…something other than peaches,” says April.

“Right? I straight up don’t eat there now Bits lives here, I just come home and look in the fridge. But I remember clear as day from frosh year. Rans used to complain about that one a lot. Now Bitty makes it with honey and it’s so good.”

“Honey? ‘Swawesome.” 

“I know, right?”

“Oh, and their lemon meringue. So dry.”

“I don’t like lemon meringue, but I believe it.”

“You don’t like lemon meringue. I don’t think we can be friends.”

Holster laughs, and after a second April cracks too.

“The blueberry didn’t have enough sugar, I definitely remember that. Jack said the apple was fine, but then Bitty went and put maple in it, and I don’t think he ever looked back.”

“That’s so Canadian.”

“Right? So fucking Canadian.”

“Are you shit-talking Canada, Holtz?” comes Rans’ voice from the living room.

“No, just maple syrup addict Canadians,” he calls back. Ransom walks in, followed closely by March.

“Oh! Hi, April!”

“I promise she didn’t follow you,” Holster says quickly. “I dragged her here to play Mario Party.”

“I thought you didn’t like Adam,” says March, frowning. April blushes furiously.

“I did _not_ say that. I said I didn’t wanna _do_ Adam. We’re just friends.”

“That sounds so weird,” complains Holster. “Like only my mom and my teachers call me Adam.”

“What’s your dumb hockey nickname, then?” asks April, and actually rolls her eyes at him. Ransom and Holster burst into laughter.

“It’s Holster,” manages Ransom after a few seconds, while Holster is still slapping the table.

“Jesus,” he gasps at last. “I don’t know why that’s so funny.”

Nobody else seems to either, and they quiet down after a moment and kind of stare at each other awkwardly.

“Good sex?” says Holster at last. March turns red, and April buries her face in her hands.

“Fucking hockey players,” she says, voice muffled.

Ransom, unfazed, just says, “Yeah, pretty good. We should do it again sometime.”

“Take her out, why don’t you,” says April, looking up to glare at him.

“We watched TV and ate pie for a while beforehand,” protests March.

“That doesn’t count.”

“You want to go out? I can be romantic,” says Ransom to March. “Jerry’s, this weekend?”

“We have an away game this weekend,” Holster reminds him. “Next weekend you’re free, though.”

“I have poetry club on Friday nights, but I can do Saturday,” says March, still pink in the face.

“Cool, next Saturday night,” says Ransom. “I’ll text you.”

March and April leave together, and Holster is stuck with a question he can’t ask in front of March or Ransom.

He supposes it’s none of his business anyway, so he doesn’t drag her aside when he sees her in passing later, just asks if she wants to hang at the Haus again during Ransom and March’s date, which she does.

When she gets there, though, and there happens to be nobody in the living room, he can’t help himself.

“Did you not tell March you don’t like dudes?”

April looks at her hands and shakes her head. “It’s easier to tell people whose opinions I don’t care about,” she says quietly. “By the time I got comfortable enough with it myself to even say it out loud, we were too close.”

Holster tries not to let that sting. 

“I feel like I’m pointing out the obvious, but you’ve got a pretty good guarantee that she won’t care.”

“I know.” April huffs a sigh. “It’s just, still scary, whether you’re sure you’ll get a good reception or not.”

Holster doesn’t get it at all, but he figures he never will, being straight, so he just nods and hands her a controller.

“I’m honored that you told me, then,” he says quietly, “even if you did it because you didn’t care what I thought.”

“I might now,” says April, and shoots him a small smile. “Just a little.”

When March comes back to find them kicking ass on the TV screen, she says, “Is this what you do with all the boys you don’t like?” with a teasing lilt to her voice.

April says, “I’m gay.” Holster guesses she said it before she could talk herself out of it.

March’s jaw drops open. Holster counts to three and she still says nothing. So he puts a hand on April’s shoulder and says, “Thank you for trusting us with this,” because he doesn’t think March needs the added complication of knowing that Holster already knew, and also because she clearly needs to be kickstarted into the supportive part of a coming out.

It works. March says, “Oh, God, I’m so sorry if I pressured you or made you feel bad,” and comes around to plop down on the sofa on April’s other side and pull her into a hug. She dwarfs April, but April seems to like that, relaxing into her friend’s hug and smiling a little. “You know I don’t care, obviously,” March adds, resting her cheek on top of April’s head. 

“Obviously,” says April, but she’s clearly relieved.

“Come on, we have to have some queer girl talk now.” March pulls April to her feet, and Holster grins.

“Hey, before you go, where’s Rans?”

“Library,” says March, frowning. “He said he needed to study for his exam.”

Holster frowns too. Ransom doesn’t have a test this week. It’s not even midterms yet, so the only class that even has tests yet is A&P, and he knows for a fact that one is just under two weeks away. He shuts off the TV and follows them out to head to the library.

Ransom is reading a textbook in a cushy armchair, but Holster doesn’t relax. He gets close enough to see Ransom’s eyes flicking over the page way too fast and, yep, anxiety studying. He plops down in the armchair next to him and says nothing, just pulls out his phone and types ‘Sid’ into the URL bar. The browser autocompletes with ‘Sidney Crosby – Works | Archive Of Our Own’ and he clicks on it. _Only For You_ has updated, so he opens it and flips to the most recent chapter.

“Hey, Holtz,” says Ransom eventually. “Tell me to put this away and go home.”

“Put the book away,” says Holster, turning off his phone screen and sticking it back in his pocket. Ransom closes the book and puts it into his backpack. “Come back to the Haus with me.” He stands up and offers Ransom a hand. Rans takes it and stands too, giving him a small but grateful smile. 

“Did March say something?” Ransom asks after a while. 

“She wasn’t pissed, if that’s what you mean,” replies Holster. “I saw her and asked where you were.”

Ransom squeezes his hand. After a minute, he says quietly, “You’re the best, Holtzy, you know that, right?”

Holster squeezes back and says nothing. 

 

One day, Holster goes to the student center and runs into Brett Springer, who says, “Hey, can I talk to you for a sec?” with a weird shifty look on his face.

“Yeah?” says Holster. “What’s up?”

“I don’t know what kind of relationship you and Oluransi have,” Springer begins, “but yesterday, I saw him at the froyo place kissing this tall blonde girl? And I panicked, I guess, cause I always thought he was a standup dude?”

“That’s March,” says Holster, confused. “And he _is_ a standup dude.”

“Okay,” says Springer, looking relieved. “As long as he’s not like, sneaking out behind your back.” He claps Holster on the shoulder and leaves.

April texts him that evening. _Yo, I know it’s like our thing or whatever to hang when M &R have a date, but I gotta get out of my room dude. Can I come do hw at your place?_

 _Yeah, sure,_ Holster sends back. She shows up a few minutes later and sets up on the couch with her laptop.

“Thanks, man,” she says, gifting him with a tiny smile. “I could not concentrate, and I have to get this paper written.”

“No problem,” says Holster, and tries to be a good study buddy. April seems to be plugging along fine, but Holster’s concentration is still shot, and he gives up ten minutes later and curls up on the carpet to read fanfiction on his phone.

WinterSun’s got a new Didn’t Know They Were Dating fic and Holster is halfway through a chapter where Geno’s having to explain to his very confused d-man that he is not, in fact, actually dating their captain, or even into guys, when he accidentally drops his phone on his face. April snickers at him.

“Hey, can I ask you a weird question?” asks Holster, staring at the ceiling. He can feel April raise an eyebrow.

“Okay…”

“What made you start thinking you might be gay?”

“Ugh,” sighs April. “I guess I always knew I thought girls were pretty, and I figured that was just, like, objective fact. And I was just always that girl who cared about her friends more than the guys she was going out with, I thought. I had a couple sex dreams about girls, but dreams are weird, right? And then in frosh year, a friend told me she was pan, and that was whatever, but then the soccer team had a kegster and I saw her making out with a girl. And I was _so jealous._ “

Holster groans in sympathy.

“Fast forward through some soul searching and daydreaming about kissing her and…” She heaves a sigh. “I stopped being able to deny it.”

“So you thought about girls before, but you didn’t think it meant anything? How’s that happen?”

“Haven’t you ever even wondered about guys?” April asks. Holster starts to shake his head, then reconsiders and actually thinks about the question.

“Not seriously. I mean, everyone has a list of actors or whoever that they’d make an exception for, right?”

“Probably.”

“I made out with a guy once, just to see what it was like.” He doesn’t know why he isn’t telling her it was Ransom.

“And?”

“It sucked.” April laughs.

“I remember thinking that the first time I kissed a guy. Is kissing girls going to be as disappointing?”

“Eh.” Holster shrugs. “There’s a lot of ways a kiss can be nothing special. Don’t freak out if it is. But it can also be really awesome.”

 

Holster’s brushing his teeth in their hotel room on a roadie while Ransom FaceTimes his mother one evening. He spits, and suddenly he can hear their conversation through the door.

“March? She’s fine, I guess.” A long pause. Holster suddenly feels weird walking back out into that, so he busies himself arranging toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste around the sink.

“It’s not like that. We’re not that serious.” Holster gives up and walks back out into the bedroom. Ransom doesn’t react. 

“She’s not even going to be around next semester, and I’m going to be a senior, like, it’s not a really good time for either of us to be doing something serious.” Holster gets the bright idea to put in headphones, and starts playing Fall Out Boy really loudly. He finally stops feeling like he’s intruding on something private.

It doesn’t stop him from asking about it when Ransom gets off the phone, though.

“Where’s March going next semester?”

“A study abroad kind of thing? She got into Smith, and when she turned them down to come here, they offered her a chance to study there for a semester. It’s pretty neat.”

“That is pretty neat,” says Holster. “C’mere, I need my bro cuddle time.”

 

They’ve spent literally all year arguing about who’s going to get the C, and it’s finally the end of year awards banquet.

“Okay,” Ransom mutters, “whatever happens, the boys’ll make the right choice.”

“Well, I know who I voted for,” Holster mutters back.

“And now, I’m glad to announce the captaincy for the next school year…” says Hall dramatically. “Adam Birkholtz.”

What?

No.

That can’t be right.

Rans is already leaning over to clap him on the back when Hall adds, “And Justin Oluransi. By a split vote. Congratulations.”

A grin breaks over Holster’s face. This, this is how it was always meant to be, them doing it together, the same as everything.

“Knew you had my back,” says Ransom quietly, offering him a fist bump.

“ _Bro._ You totally had mine.”

 

 _Can I come over?_ texts April one night, a couple days into Reading Week.

 _Sure,_ Holster texts back.

April lets herself into the Haus and plops down next to Holster on the couch, wrapping her arms around herself. 

Holster knows his emotional intelligence isn’t all that high, but even he can tell that something’s wrong.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Nothing,” says April, but her voice cracks.

“Can I hug you?” asks Holster quietly.

“If you do, I really am going to cry,” she mutters.

“It’s healthy to express your emotions,” he tells her, and draws her close. April gasps a little and starts trembling, lips clamped tightly together and eyes squeezed shut. 

She’s such a quiet crier, it kind of unnerves Holster, whose entire family is loud about having emotions. 

“Do you want me to text March?” he offers, before remembering that he doesn’t actually have March’s phone number, and anyway if that was what April wanted, she could have done it herself.

Not only does April shake her head, she cries harder, and Holster’s genuinely worried now.

“Did she do something?”

“Just—made it sound like—dating me was the—weirdest idea she ever heard,” April gets out between sobs, and oh. Holster gets it now. 

“I love her so much,” April admits in a whisper, and Holster cuddles her tightly.

“We should keep in touch over the summer,” he says after a minute. “You have a SnapChat?”

April does not have a SnapChat, but she’s willing to make one to stop thinking about March. Holster sends her a bunch of pictures of dogs he encounters. April sends him unimpressed faces back.

 

Ransom and Holster meet at Niagara Falls the same as always. Holster drags Ransom to the Hard Rock Café and they spend a lot of time trying to get a black and white checked guitar in the shot with them before a nice lady offers to take the photo for them.

“Next year we should go to the one on the Canada side again, make it even,” says Holster afterwards.

“Bro,” says Ransom, the smile melting off his face, “we’re gonna be seniors next year.”

“Oh,” says Holster. It wasn’t that he’d _forgotten_ , exactly, just that it hadn’t really sunk in that graduating would mean they wouldn’t do this anymore. “You don’t think we’ll come back?”

“I mean, we might? But who knows what we’re going to be doing after college. I’ll probably be on a break before med school, but you might be working. Man, that’s depressing.” He sighs and knocks his shoulder into Holster’s. “Guess we better make it the best trip ever, huh?”

It is the best trip ever. It’s still bittersweet. Holster tries not to think about the elephant in the room, but it’s there, in everything they do. _Last time we see the falls. Last time we get coffee at a tiny shop. Last time we get a ridiculous touristy selfie._

It sucks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First kisses aren’t always all they’re cracked up to be. I was too exhausted to enjoy mine.  
> If you can guess which CP author "WinterSun" is an homage to, you get brownie points.  
> Smith totally does actually do this, they offered it to me. I always wished I had enough semesters to take them up on it *and* go abroad. Also Niagara Falls totally does have a Hard Rock Cafe on either side, and the NY-side one totally does have a checkered guitar on display. So google tells me, I've only been to the Canada side.


	2. Senior Year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna post this on Saturday but I'm having a sucky night so I'm posting it now in hopes of getting comments to improve my day.

Ransom has a crush on Alexei Mashkov.

Like, a bro-crush, a celebrity crush. But still. It’s hella annoying.

He, Bitty, and Lardo are gathered around Bitty’s computer over lunch, watching, not a Falcs game, but a behind the scenes FalcsTV video thing.

“Tater seems fun,” was all Lardo had said, and now Ransom is…

“Fun? Alexei Mashkov is ‘swawesome. Like next level ‘swawesome.”

Gushing.

“And—get this—Guy, Marty, and Third always eat breakfast together! Isn’t that adorable?” Bitty is saying.

“Bitty, you’re like, low-key an expert on the Falcs,” says Nursey, who’s only half paying attention. Bitty mutters something about Jack talking about them.

“Bro, you’re like, so good at keeping up with Jack and Shits! How often do you guys all call? I’m supes jealous.”

It’s a March word, and maybe that’s why Holster says, “Jack calls Bitty more than you call March.”

 _“Dude,”_ says Ransom.

It’s true, though. March is off at Smith, and they’re still together, but they don’t make much of an effort to keep in touch. March deserves better than that, Holster thinks. She deserves a real boyfriend, who’s actually going to pay attention to her. That’s not Ransom.

 

Holster makes an effort to invite April to things. He can’t imagine how alone he’s going to feel without Ransom after school, and he guesses it’s probably similar to how April’s feeling now without March. She strides into the Haus one day and sets herself in front of Holster, five feet of determination.

“You should hold a kegster this weekend,” she announces.

“Not that I’m not always down for a kegster,” says Holster, “but why?”

“I want to hook up with a girl. Or at least make out with one. I’m sick of waiting for March, and I’m sick of the nerves, and I just want to get drunk and dance and hit on hot girls.”

“You could go to a gay bar,” pointed out Holster. “But then again you might be more likely to get lucky here. And I am an excellent wingman.”

“Counting on it, bro,” says April, drops down beside him, and slugs him in the arm.

“Rans is gonna ask why. Can I tell him?” 

April swallows. “Yeah, okay,” she agrees. “He’s pretty chill. And there’s not much point trying to stay in the closet if I’m going to do this.”

“Basically,” agrees Holster. He holds out a fist, and she bumps it. Holster opens Facebook in a new tab and creates a new event.

“You don’t have to check with your housemates?” asks April.

“Dude, we didn’t even check with Jack when we had kegsters last year and he was captain. If I had, we’d never have any parties,” says Holster. “And me and Rans are in charge now.”

“Oh, please, like anybody’s actually in charge of this hockey team besides Lardo,” says Bitty, poking his head in from the kitchen. 

“True. But the day Lardo tells us not to hold a party is a cold day in hell.”

 

The kegster is a smashing success, except, so far, for its actual purpose, because April is still leaning against the wall next to Holster, sipping at her tub juice.

“What gives?” he asks without looking away from Ransom, Shitty, and Bitty on the dance floor.

“I’m too nervous to talk to girls,” says April flatly, “and also too nervous to drink fast enough to stop being nervous.”

“C’mon,” says Holster, “let’s play flip cup.”

After twenty minutes or so, April’s considerably more relaxed, and Holster tugs her over to a guy he recognizes. 

“Springer, my dude,” he calls, holding out a fist for the other guy to bump.

“Birkholtz,” returns Springer. “How goes it?”

“It certainly goes,” said Holster. “This is April.”

“Hi,” says Springer, bumping her fist too. “Brett.”

“My man Springer is the president of the Samwell LGBT Athletics Association,” Holster tells April. Her face lights up in understanding.

“Oh yeah? A lot of folks from there here tonight?”

Springer grins. “Yeah, you want me to introduce you?”

Holster squeezes April’s shoulder and backs off as Springer takes April over to a small knot of people. He reclaims his spot on the wall and watches her.

“Dude,” says Ransom, dropping beside him. “Whatcha doing?”

“Keeping an eye on April,” says Holster absentmindedly.

“You are putting an awful lot of effort into getting someone else laid,” points out Ransom.

“She’s my friend,” says Holster, feeling somewhat irritated. “Like I’ve never wingmanned for you.”

“That’s different,” disagrees Ransom.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, it just is.”

April disappears, but Holster texts her the next day.

_Did you hook up???_

_No, but I did kiss a girl! Her name is Roxie, she’s a redhead and she’s on the SWH._

“Oh yeah, Roxie,” says Ransom, reading over his shoulder. “She’s cool.” Holster bats him away.

_And? Was it good?_

_Not like it is in books, but still good_  
_We made out for like an hour_

Holster sends her a string of emojis.

April doesn’t write back to that for half a day, not that Holster expected her to, and when she does, it’s to say, _I think March is ghosting me_ with an angry emoji.

 _What??_ he sends back. 

_I texted her to tell her and she’s ducking glued to her phone you know? and nothing since yesterday_

Holster is halfway through composing a reply when there’s a knock on the attic door.

“Come in!” calls Ransom, and it’s April.

“Have YOU talked to March?” she demands. Ransom looks backed into a corner.

“Uh. Yes?” he says, like he’s aware it’s the wrong answer but not why.

“See?” April says to Holster, thereby destroying his (admittedly weak) argument that she might not have seen the text despite usually being ‘ducking’ glued to her phone.

“Sucks, bro,” he says, pulling her in gently for a side hug. She submits to it for a second before pulling away to pace.

“The only thing that makes any sense is she’s jealous. That’s literally the only thing I can think of. But that’s so…” She trails off and waves her hand through the air. “Word?”

“Self-centered?” suggests Holster, and she nods. 

“And to take the _fucking_ cake, if she _is_ jealous, she _doesn’t have any right to be_ because _she doesn’t want me!_ ”

Holster feels helpless. He stares at Ransom, who shakes his head as if to say, “I got no clue either, dude.” He knows that if it were Ransom, he would listen, let him rant until he ran out of steam, and then get ice cream. He has no idea if that’s the right course of action with April.

He suggests it anyway. She gives him the tiniest smile.

“Thanks, man. But can we just, like, play violent video games or something?”

Holster has a paper to write, but he doesn’t say that. 

“Yeah, sure. C’mon.”

 

When April finally goes home, Holster pours himself a soda for the caffeine and heads back upstairs, idly considering just not turning in the paper on time and taking the bad grade.

He finds Ransom sitting on the bottom bunk, staring intently at his laptop screen with Holster’s econ reading laid out beside him. He looks up and grins.

“All right, bro, I had to google eight or ten things, but I think I understand most of this. Ready?”

“What?” says Holster.

“You write faster if you have someone to bounce ideas off of, and you reach maximum potential if the person can talk intelligently back to you. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how much more work you have to put into classes now I don’t know the subject.”

Holster blinks. “I figured that was just because I was taking harder classes.”

“Nah. Back when you were taking your English credit, if I talked it out with you, you got it done in half the time it took you if I was busy. And you speak German just fine, but it takes you forever to write papers in it.”

Holster blinks at him and tries to corral the many emotions tumbling around inside his head. Ransom had noticed that about him? When he hadn’t noticed himself? Ransom could pull out specific examples, which meant he probably had actually tracked the data, but he wasn’t downplaying it or acting embarrassed, he was just, like, comfortable with obviously knowing Holster.

“Also, tomorrow’s Rosh Hashanah, this way you don’t have to work on your paper on the holiday.”

Holster doesn’t have the heart to remind him that Rosh Hashanah started at sundown. “I love you,” is what eventually comes out of his mouth. Ransom grins at him.

“Love ya right back, bro.”

 

He tells April about it later because he’s just kind of floored with it.

“You guys are really close,” she observes.

“He’s just, like, my favorite person,” Holster says. “I’m so lucky to have somebody who _cares_ so much, you know? ”

He realizes hours later that it’s probably rude to tell one friend that the other is your favorite person. But April didn’t seem upset about it, and like, it’s fine, right? That his roommate and D-partner and best friend since freshman year is his favorite over his friend he’s known for less than a year? April never brings it up, and nothing changes, so Holster doesn’t either.

Two days later, she texts him _thank your bro for me March texted back_. 

“April says thanks, March texted back,” he says to Ransom. “I didn’t know you’d talked to her about it.”

“Not much, I just mentioned that she was here and she seemed upset. Which, like, massive understatement, but I don’t wanna come on too strong.” 

Holster’s touched, that Ransom would intervene for _his_ friend with his own girlfriend. But he doesn’t have further words, so he just offers a fist bump.

 

“First resume submitted,” Holster says, pushing himself away from his desk with a sigh. 

“Woot!” says Ransom, shooting him a thumbs up. And then, “Hey, can you send me the link?”

“Yeah, sure. Why?”

“I was thinking, what if I don’t get into any of the schools I apply to?”

“You will,” says Holster immediately. “You have a 4.0. From an Ivy. What more could they possibly want?”

“But still. Just in case. It’s good to have a backup plan. So I thought I’d try submitting to the same places you are.”

“What.”

“I wouldn’t be competing with you!” Ransom rushes to explain, like _that’s_ what Holster’s worried about. “If they only have one slot, they’ll give it to you, you’ve actually got the econ major. But if they’ve got room for both of us, wouldn’t it be sweet to work together?”

And what’s Holster going to say, _no_?

“Totally sweet,” he agrees, and ignores the weird feeling in his stomach.

 

They overhear Bitty on the phone with his _boyfriend_ , who is _Jack_ , shortly before the end of the semester, and by the grace of all that is holy, Bitty and Jack come out to them four days later, before either of them has a chance to fuck it up. 

“Bro,” says Ransom later, “if Jack’s gay, do you think he was actually hooking up with Parson back in the day?”

“Oh my god,” says Holster. “I bet he was. Statistically speaking, there’s a fanfic somewhere that’s close to the truth.”

“But if he’s gay, and he knew that back then, too, what about all the girls he wheeled while he was here? Camilla? Samantha?”

Holster’s phone buzzes, and he pulls it out. It’s Lardo with a question about next semester’s roadies, so he pauses to type out an answer.

“Lardo’s bisexual,” he remembers suddenly. “That’s a thing. I bet Jack is too.”

“Oh yeah. I bet you’re right.”

 

 _Happy Chrismukkah bro!!_ Ransom texts him on the 24th. Holster snorts, but he can’t hold back the grin.

_Bro! Happy Chrismukkah!_

 

Spring semester starts, and it’s the last semester of their college career. March comes back from Smith, and pretty immediately breaks up with Ransom, who isn’t too fussed about it. April doesn’t stop hanging out with him, though, and Holster has to be glad Rans and March dated if this is what he gets out of it. 

He wakes up one morning to an acceptance letter in his student email. 

“Bro,” he says, poking at Ransom and showing him.

“Sweet!” Ransom cheers, and opens his own email. “Hey, I have one, too!”

 _That’s not supposed to be relevant,_ Holster wants to say. 

“Do you think it’s a good fit?” he says instead, staring at the letter.

“Boston’s not that far. And we’d be in the same city as Shits. That’d be sweet. And they get good reviews on GlassDoor.” Holster doesn’t know what to say about the ‘we’ in that sentence, so he tries to ignore it.

They toss some more pros and cons out in between getting dressed and heading over to the dining hall.

“Okay,” Holster decides. “I’ll send in my acceptance.”

“Same.”

And no, actually, he can’t ignore it, what the fuck?

“What do you mean, same?”

Ransom’s brows draw down together. “That was the plan, right? If we got accepted by the same company? Work together? I distinctly remember having this conversation, bro.”

“ _Really, Ransom?_ ” 

“Adam Birkholtz,” says Bitty from the other side of the breakfast bar, “why on _earth_ are you shouting at Ransom in commons at 7am.”

“I—sorry,” says Holster, lowering his voice and making a concerted effort to rein in his temper. Ransom’s shoulders are hunched defensively, and he hates that he’s the cause of it.

“Dude!” says Ransom, glaring at the toast. “Back _the fuck_ off! I’ve been doing the interviews since November as a Plan B. You knew—”

“But I didn’t know you were _serious_ -serious about consulting,” protests Holster. “It’s selfish, soulless, corporate, liberal arts grad _grunt-work_.”

“Holster,” says Chowder, “you want to go into consulting!” 

“ _I’m an econ major, Christopher!_ ” hollers Holster, and once again forcibly lowers his voice. Chowder doesn’t mean any harm.

“You’re giving up on bio!” he says instead, carrying his bowl of eggs back to the table. “You _like_ bio. And doctor stuff.”

“I know, I’m like, majoring in bio and did pre-med...” says Ransom. “And helping people and stuff is important or whatever.” _Or whatever?_ He sits down and starts counting off on his fingers. “But my _parents_ want me to be a doctor. My sister’s a pharmacist and my other one wants to do engineering. We’d be this weird trifecta of Nigerian parent expectations.”

And, what? Is Ransom trying to say _he_ doesn’t be a doctor?

“But…” Holster gives up on peeling his egg halfway through and waves it around instead. “You and Shitty are like the smartest bros I know. Don’t you wanna be like him? Make the world a better place with your brain?”

“IDK,” says Ransom. “I kinda want to make money?”

“Same,” says Whiskey from next to Ransom. 

“Soft same,” echoes Dex from his other side. Neither of them are paying all that much attention; Whiskey’s on his laptop and Dex is salting an egg, so Holster ignores them. 

They ignore each other about everything except hockey through practice. Instead of going back to the Haus to study, Holster texts April and crashes on her floor.

“What’s up?” she says, staring critically at him.

“Ransom’s being an idiot,” he grumbles. 

“Are you actually fighting with Ransom?” April asks, raising both eyebrows judgmentally.

“Yes,” Holster admits. “He keeps talking about ditching med school and going into consulting with me.” He tells April the whole story, their whole fight over breakfast, how Ransom’s supposed to be a doctor and save lives, not serve corporate assholes.

“So you’re allowed to do soulless liberal arts grad grunt work, but he’s got to live up to a higher standard?” April’s eyebrows are still doing the judgey thing.

“No, that’s not—that’s not it,” says Holster, shaking his head. “Ransom is like, this, this amazing, brilliant person who’s going to save lives, and here he is saying he doesn’t want to save lives anymore.”

“So you’re disappointed in him for the same shit he’s afraid of disappointing his parents over.”

“That’s—fuck.” It’s true, he realizes in horror. Some small part of him is actually disappointed that Ransom isn’t living up to the pedestal Holster’s got him on. Which is so fucked up. “I am, aren’t I,” he says miserably.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell him,” says April, patting his shoulder. “It’s okay to have emotions, but maybe don’t let these ones make your decisions?”

No, Holster thinks, it’s like what Shitty’s always saying about unlearning toxic behavior. You can’t always stop your gut reaction to a thing, but if you know it’s a shitty gut reaction, you can try to keep it from influencing your decisions and hurting other people. But… 

“That isn’t all of it, though,” he says stubbornly. “I don’t think he’s making this decision logically, either. I think he’s running scared.” And maybe Holster’s a little disappointed in Ransom for that, too. But that doesn’t mean anything. What’s he here for, if not to keep his bro from throwing away years of work over last-minute panic?

“Well, that’s a thing you can ask him,” says April.

Holster texts Ransom.

_Can we talk?_

_Yeah, bro. Headed back to the Haus now, meet u there?_

Holster catches up with him outside the Haus.

“I’m sorry I overreacted,” he starts. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. I just, dude, I get you’re scared.” They step into the Haus and he turns to face Ransom, gesturing to make his point. “But you’re reacting! It’s like when you freak out before a final, but this isn’t some test. Giving up your whole plan just to do what I’m doing doesn’t make—”

“Fine, Holtzy!” explodes Ransom. “Yeah! I’m freaking out, okay? But like, fuck medicine or whatever—I don’t know what I want to _do_ so why the fuck can’t I make up my mind while doing something else for a while?”

The fight drains out of Holster. It’s not like Rans can’t apply for med school next year if he wants to. And it’s definitely better if he can make up his mind without the pressure of the deadline.

“Like, we’re graduating,” continues Ransom. “And. why wouldn’t I want to hang out with my best friend in Boston for another year.”

“Dude…” says Holster, and he can’t meet Ransom’s angry glare. “I guess…when you put it that way.”

“Like? We’re _bros_ bro,” says Ransom, reaching out to clasp Holster’s shoulder. “You’re my _brother!_ ” Tears are welling up at the corner of his eyes, but he’s smiling again, and Holster catches both, sniffing loudly.

“Dude!” He tries to pour all of his emotions into the word. Ransom is sure about _him._ Not about medicine, or his future, but about _Holster._ And damned if that doesn’t make Holster feel All the things.

“Ransom and Holster! Holster and Ransom!”

And no, Holster’s rapidly losing control of his tear ducts. “See, if you cry, I’ll!” His voice breaks.

“Fucking bring it in, man!” says Ransom, and wraps his arms around Holster, and how could Holster have ever argued against a plan that lets him keep this man in his life longer?

“I got your back, bro,” he sobs into Ransom’s shoulder.

April doesn’t tell him she told him so, but he can feel it anyway when he tells her.

 

Samwell doesn’t make it past the first round of ECAC playoffs. For the first time in four years. 

The team keeps telling them it’s not them, it’s not their fault, and like, they know the last four years they had Jack Zimmermann, formerly a high draft prospect and now one of the NHL’s top scorers, and that only a few teams get farther every year anyway, and the best captaining in the world can’t invent talent or luck.

It still fucking hurts.

“Look at it this way,” says Lardo, “You don’t have to play hockey during Passover this year, Holtzy. And Rans, we can actually have a birthday party.”

“Shit, yeah!” says Ransom. “Birthday slash Easter kegster. Keagster!” 

They buy about a million plastic eggs and hide tiny bottles of liquor inside, and spend Friday evening hiding them all over the Haus and the yard. Ransom acquires a giant inflatable duck for no readily apparent reason. 

And then Alexei Fucking Mashkov shows up with Jack to relieve Bitty of their kitchenful of jam. 

Holster has nothing against Mashkov, he really doesn’t. He just has something against the way he was planning to spend the day with Ransom, and instead Ransom comes down from the attic, runs into Mashkov, squeaks, and runs back up again, knocking his snapback off in the process. He has something against the way Mashkov picks up the hat and wears it around while he plays beer pong with Lardo. He has something against the way Mashkov takes selfies with Wellie the Well, the green couch, the jam, and anything else that strikes his fancy, like he’s a goddamn tourist, and Ransom is still upstairs hiding in his own fucking Haus on his own birthday party because he’s too goddamn starstruck to come downstairs, but he still leans out the attic window to yell goodbye when Tater finally leaves.

Maybe Holster does have something against Mashkov. Just a little.

The party’s good, though. 

 

The NHL playoffs start and Jack has rinkside tickets for literally as many home games as they all want to go to. Bitty goes to them all, of course, but Holster, Ransom, and Lardo make a token effort toward being good students and focusing on the looming finals and graduation, and only go to roughly half. There’s nothing quite like being at a home game—the energy is always incredible, and even when it’s just a normal game Holster always finds himself thoroughly invested in the outcome and excited like it’s his birthday twice over. _Playoffs_ games? Surrounded by his friends? With _Jack_ playing? Holster’s very proud of his self-control. 

Especially since Ransom buys a Mashkov jersey. With Jack in the same damn games. What the fuck.

 

“Yo, Holtzy, Rans!” says Lardo on a Friday afternoon. “Me and Shits were talking, and we had a ‘swawesome idea. You guys are gonna be in Boston, right?” They nod, and she continues. “What if we all looked for an apartment together? Haus two-oh.”

Holster looks at Ransom and sees his own excitement reflected back at him.

“’Swawesome,” they say together, and each hold out a fist for Lardo to bump. 

Letting go of Samwell is easier, knowing he has Ransom, Shitty, and Lardo by his side a little longer. There are still plenty of waterworks, though. Kissing the ice doesn’t feel real. How is it they’re actually leaving this place? 

They team up with Shitty and look at apartments. And then, on a whim, a small house available for rent. 

“I gotta say, bros, I like this one,” says Lardo. “Multiple floors, a place for a game room, an actual kitchen.”

“Given what we’re going to be making, and Shitty’s trust fund…we can’t quite afford it,” says Ransom, frowning at his computer. “Not comfortably.”

“We’ll get another roommate,” says Lardo.

“And put them where? There’s only four bedrooms.”

Shitty giggles. Lardo buries her face in her hands.

“Bros. _Bros._ I love you, but you are the densest motherfuckers I’ve ever met.”

Holster glares at her.

“So, enlighten us,” says Ransom.

“Me and Shitty will share a room,” says Lardo, turning a little red. “Cause we’re together.”

“You’re _what?_ ” says Ransom. 

“We were trying to be subtle about it,” she complains, as Holster frantically works through every interaction between them he can remember witnessing within the last six months.

“You can’t be subtle with us,” Ransom protests. “Seriously, bro? You’re not fucking with us?”

“This is why you were at brunch when Bits and Jack told us about them!” says Holster, finally remembering something that had confused him at the time. “We said we thought you’d gone back to Boston, and you didn’t really answer. You were with Lardo!”

“Ch’yeah, dude. You seriously didn’t figure that out until just now?”

“Can’t. Do. Subtle. With us.”

“You can’t chirp Rans about Jerry’s brunch, anymore, Holster, you live under the same rock.”

“So. Back to the point. Fifth roommate? Craigslist ad?”

“Yeah, go for it.”

Shitty’s ad is, true to form, irreverent and mildly obscene, and Holster can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. They get an offer within two days, though, and next thing he knows they’re signing the lease and set to move in on graduation day. Shitty volunteers to take over the keys so the others can focus on graduating and turn up the next day. 

Bitty cries when they hand over the keys, but with the team it’s not really like leaving yet because now that graduation’s over, there’s absolutely nothing to stop them from attending the rest of the conference finals games, and the SCF if the Falcs win this series. It’s not that Ransom doesn’t appreciate his new watch, or Holster his new Watermark, but their parents don’t seem to comprehend how expensive those tickets would be on their own.

“Perks to having an NHL star for a bro turned out to be pretty sweet,” says Ransom, and Holster agrees.

Saying goodbye to April is still hard. He promises to text, and gets a warm, fervent hug and a painful punch to the bicep.

“You fucking better,” she threatens, sniffing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you weren't aware, Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. This will be relevant later.
> 
> The [original kegster-planning scene](https://khashanakalashtar.tumblr.com/post/181062937415/a-darling-i-have-to-kill-cause-jack-graduated) was funnier, but then I rearranged my timeline and Jack had graduated already, so I had to write him out of it.


	3. Postgrad

The new job isn’t horrible. Their coworkers are friendly and engaging, the benefits are pretty sweet, and it isn’t nearly as hard as Holster feared to keep from dropping f-bombs every other sentence while there.

“What are you doing this weekend?” Julia asks every Friday.

“Hockey game,” says Ransom. “Again.”

 

The Falcs do win the series. Holster doesn’t envy Jack the stress one bit, but the good parts? Yeah, he’d kind of kill to be skating on NHL ice for the Stanley Cup Finals. The Falcs won their series in five, but the Schooners and Aces are neck and neck. Jack and Bitty host a watching party for game 7, and invite all of SMH as well as all the Falconers. Including Alexei Mashkov. Ransom about dies. 

Holster pastes a smile on as Mashkov talks, gesturing with one piece of cake in each hand, and Ransom stands there and grins like he’s been ordered to at gunpoint. He’s actually sweating. 

He texts April to complain that night.

_Bro. Why the fuck do you care?_

_He’s just hung up on this dumb celebrity crush and I’m standing right here,_ he says. 

April’s typing dots appear and disappear several times.

_You live with him. Are you honestly telling me that he’s neglecting your friendship. Cause you can’t make Ransom only pay attention to you ever._

Which, duh, that’s not what he meant, but rereading the text, Holster can see how it comes off a bit possessive.

When he tries to explain that’s not what he meant, though, he can’t find any words to explain what he _does_ mean. 

_Yeah I guess,_ he sends back finally. 

_Tell him you’re jealous. Figure it out together._

He can tell just how much she thinks he’s being an idiot by how much punctuation she’s using.

He doesn’t talk to Ransom, though.

Games 1 and 2 go badly, and Holster is genuinely worried for Jack’s mental health if Seattle sweeps them. But then, somehow, they win game 3 in Seattle. 

Game 4 they win too, but halfway through the second period, Mashkov and a Schooner fall into a tangle and Mashkov doesn’t stand up again. The replay shows the hit—almost certainly an accident, but Mashkov’s season is clearly over. 

“Fuck,” says Ransom, glued to the screen and biting his nails. “Is he okay? Fuckin’ number 23, what did he think he was doing?” Holster leans into him a little more heavily than he has to, even given how crowded they are on the couch.

“He’ll be fine,” he says, maybe a little angrily, because Ransom gives him a weird look.

The Falcs win game 5 too. “Are we bad luck?” frets Ransom. “Should we stop going?”

“If anything, the Schooners’ ice is _good_ luck,” says Lardo. “They won home games in the conference finals with us in the stands.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” says Ransom, and fails to explain how, exactly, it doesn’t work like that.

 

The Falcs are back in Providence for game 6, and Holster has to text Jack to ask him if he still wants them there because otherwise Ransom won’t go.

 _you’re fine, haha_ Jack sends back. _you were at games we won in the conference finals_

“See?” says Lardo. Ransom glares.

The Falcs lose game 6 and Holster has to guilt trip Ransom into going to game 7.

Game 7 goes to fucking OT and if the Falcs lose, Holster thinks Ransom might kill him.

“Everybody _make some noise!_ ” hollers the announcer. Somebody starts up a chant of “Go, Falcs, go!”

It’s the greatest goal of Jack’s career. Most of the Schooners are gathered around their goal defending, but Jack puts the puck through the traffic and flicks it in under the glove. And that’s it. The Falconers have won the Stanley Cup. 

They stay, of course. They cheer extra loud when Jack takes his round with the Cup. They text incomprehensible gibberish of glee to all the SMH teammates that aren’t there. It’s later, much later, after Jack’s awarded the Conn Smythe, after ESPN stops playing postgame coverage that isn’t talking heads and you have to be watching NHL Network to see what’s happening, that they’re allowed out onto the ice. 

Ransom and Lardo are distracted taking a selfie, waiting for Jack to see his family before they rush him, but Holster is watching Bitty sprint across the ice in that way that’s only possible a) for someone intimately aware of the ice and how to move on it and b) after an intense hockey game has scraped up the ice and the snow hasn’t been brushed off. Holster is watching Jack scoop Bitty up and swing him around, and he’s _literally_ fucking thinking _bros stop cuddling before you end up giffed on Tumblr and a million fans clock you_ when Jack very deliberately kisses Bitty in full view of the cameras.

“Holy hell. _Wow._ Rans, Lards…did you see that?”

“See what?”

Holster understands the concept of ‘was looking the other direction’, but it seems inconceivable that Lardo and Ransom haven’t noticed the shakedown of the NHL world that just went down. 

“And there’s cameras and stuff—they’re.” It occurs to him that _no,_ actually, they just said they haven’t, so he needs to back up. “Jack and Bitty. They kissed.”

“Holy _shit._ ”

“ _Bros._ ”

They share a look and collectively, silently agree that it’s time to rush Jack. 

“Bro!”

“Jack! Bits!”

“Capitanes!!”

Holster is overwhelmed all over again that _they just won the cup, holy shit,_ and he allows them all a few seconds to yell in incomprehensible glee before he has to ask.

“ _Um._ Did you guys just kiss?” It’s a dumb question, but he’s honestly starting to disbelieve the evidence of his own eyes. Jack’s not panicking, he’s elated and calm and grinning and Bitty’s radiating sheer joy from where he’s crushed in the middle.

“Um, yeah. Think so,” says Jack flippantly and. Holy shit.

Holster is excited, okay, Holster is having the time of his life, but he literally cannot comprehend being happy enough to do that. This is _Jack,_ Jack who has an anxiety disorder, saying _um, yeah, think so_ about something that is literally going to change the face of hockey, holy shit.

It’s not like Holster can keep harping on it, though, he doesn’t want to actively try to ruin Jack’s mood and here they are with the, has he mentioned, _motherfucking Stanley Cup_ that the Falconers have just won, so he lets it go.

They head to a bar, and then to Jack’s apartment, and they get so thoroughly fucked up that most of them black out completely for at least an hour or two. When Holster can open his eyes without wanting to die, he watches Jack’s Snapchat story to fill in the blanks. 

Most of the entries are stills, but there are a couple videos stuck in there. Holster’s eyes are drawn to himself and Ransom in the background of Tater monologuing about pie. 

On-screen Ransom grabs on-screen Holster by the hoodie and kisses him full on the lips.

On-screen Holster wraps his arms around on-screen Ransom and drags him down out of the shot.

The story moves on.

Holster mashes a lot of buttons trying to get the story to end and restart.

It hasn’t changed the second time around.

Holster’s first thought is to ask Jack if he noticed it, but obviously he didn’t, or he wouldn’t have posted it to his story like that, even though his Snapchat isn’t public like his Insta is. 

His second thought is to ask _Ransom_ if _he_ remembers it, but what if he doesn’t? What if he doesn’t, and he watches it, and he’s weirded out by how…enthusiastic Holster is?

He kissed you first, Holster tells his brain. He doesn’t have a lot of room to be weirded out.

But what if it was just, like, a bro kiss? his brain responds. And being weirded out isn’t always logical. 

If he does remember, though, he might be hoping Holster doesn’t. So. All parts of the brain in favor of not saying anything to Ransom.

 

Rans doesn’t seem like he’s acting any differently when Holster finally drags himself into the land of the living.

“Bro, what the fuck, why did you let me drink that much tub juice,” he groans. 

“Why was I in charge of alcohol drinking monitoring?” complains Holster. “Or whatever.”

“Why was Holster in charge of monitoring alcohol consumption?” says Shitty.

“That,” says Holster.

“Don’t you lads have work? It’s a Thursday.”

“It was game 7. Win or lose, we were getting fucked up either way,” says Rans. “We took the day off. We’re working late like the whole rest of this month to make up for it, but it’s worth it.”

“Where’s Bits?” says Shitty. “His mom just called, but I don’t see him anywhere.”

“Presser, probably,” says Ransom.

“Ransom. My beautiful Canadian friend. You are correct. I lack basic deductive ability. Why are you not the one in law school?”

“Why the fuck is your vocabulary so big at…one in the afternoon after a Cup party?”

“I’ve been awake for the last hour, and I drink water with my tub juice.”

“So did I!” says Ransom. “Not enough of it, clearly.”

 

Holster does his best to be normal. It helps that it’s Ransom. Holster doesn’t think he remembers how to be weird with Ransom. They’ve been living in each other’s pockets for literal years. When you’ve nursed each other through panic attacks, had sex in the same room, and created the best friend sundae, it’s hard to not feel comfortable with each other, even when your brain keeps ending up on this weird intrusive thought whirlpool when you’re not paying attention. They’ll just be talking, about work or the Avengers or whether Patrick Stump or Brendon Urie would be more likely to sign a giraffe if asked, and Holster’s brain will just ambush him with _you kissed that man and you don’t even remember it_ and Holster has to kind of just shake his head like the thought’s an irritating fly and forcibly move on.

 

April texts him in all caps one day shortly after the semester starts. 

_MARCH ASKED ME OUT!!!! AND KISSED ME!!!!!!_

It’s followed up by shocked cat emoji, a rainbow of hearts, celebratory bells emoji, gift emoji, and lesbians emoji. 

_OMG! Congratulations!_

The phone rings in his hand and he answers it.

“Are you guys a thing now?”

“Yes! We’re dating! Oh my God, Holster, I can’t even!”

He’s literally never heard her express this much happiness over anything, and something warm curls around his heart.

“I’m so happy for you,” he says, pouring as much sincerity into his voice as he can. And then, because she clearly wants to talk about it, “Tell me everything.”

“We were just hanging out, talking, and she said she wanted to ask me something, and she got really quiet and turned pink? And then she said she really liked me, as more than a friend, and she wondered if I’d be interested in going on a date with her. And I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I’d heard her right? Cause, basically all my dreams coming true. So I was like, ‘really?’ and she was like, ‘really,’ and I said I’d liked her for a long time too and I’d love to go out with her, and then she asked if she could kiss me.”

“Was it good?” asks Holster, smiling as he remembers their conversation. 

“Like fireworks,” she answers, and he can hear how wide she’s smiling in her voice.

 

“March and April are dating now,” he tells Ransom when he hangs up with her.

“Seriously? March is gay?”

“Maybe bi,” says Holster.

“Oh, yeah. Right. Seriously, though, that’s great.”

“Yeah, April’s had a thing for her since we met,” Holster says.

“Really? Wow. Good for them.”

“Have you ever been in love?” Holster isn’t really sure what makes him ask the question. Ransom ponders it for a second.

“Don’t think so? Had a lot of crushes, but it never went beyond that. You?”

“I loved Caroline,” Holster says, naming the captain of the swim club at his high school. Ransom, having heard all about Caroline over the years, makes a ‘mmm’ noise in response. 

“Does it count if you never actually dated?”

“Dude, of course it does. There’s a million stories about unrequited love.”

“What’s it like?”

Holster pauses to consider. “It’s not that different from being best friends with someone, except I wanted to have sex with her.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, like basically the same feeling. Like that’s the person you wanna tell whenever something important happens and you just wanna be around them all the time and they make you happy.”

“Huh. Is that why they say men and women can’t be friends without falling in love?”

“I guess? Shitty says that’s misogynistic bullshittery, though.”

“Not sure he can talk, he fell in love with Lardo.”

 

Holster mentions the conversation to April later, because he mentions most things to April, not because it was particularly important or anything, but April disagrees.

“Being in love is like a craving. Loving friends is a much…calmer kind of love. Like, everything makes me think of March. All the love songs are about her in my brain. I got into Taylor Swift because of March, because all of a sudden I empathized with all of it. Loving friends is like, the same way I love hot chocolate, or curling up in front of the fire in winter.”

“And loving March isn’t?”

“No, loving March is like…” She makes a frustrated noise. “I don’t know.”

“What’s April think?” Ransom asks from across the room. “Now I’m interested.” Holster snorts.

“Ransom’s invested,” he tells April. “Can I put you on speakerphone?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Yo, April,” says Ransom.

“’Sup, dude,” says April. “I was just telling Holster that I don’t love March the same way I love my friends.”

“Well, not _all_ of them,” says Holster. “I meant a _best_ friend. Like me and Rans.”

“Bruh, I grew up with a friend like that. We lived out of each other’s pockets. I know what best friends feels like.”

“She says loving friends is like loving hot chocolate or the fire in winter, and loving March is like, all the songs are about her now,” Holster summarizes for Ransom.

“The songs?”

“Yeah, dude. All the love songs make me think of her. She makes me so amazingly happy, like I didn’t know a person could? It’s like the kind of high I imagine you get off of the good stuff.” She’s silent for a moment, then adds quietly, “It’s like not having depression for a few minutes sometimes.”

“ _Bro,_ ” says Holster, who didn’t _know,_ but for whom it makes perfect sense now that he thinks about it.

“Yeah,” says April. “All right, that’s enough emotions for me for one day, ‘kay? I’ll talk to you later, Holster.”

“Yeah, talk to you later,” says Holster. 

“Say hi to March for me, and tell her I’m happy for you,” says Ransom.

“Will do. Bye.”

“Bye,” Ransom and Holster say together, and Holster hangs up.

“Did that make sense to you?” Rans says after a second.

“Not really,” says Holster. “I’d still say loving friends can be as intense as being in love. Like, you make me happy like that, bro.”

“ _Bro._ ”

Holster reaches out for a fistbump, but Ransom hugs him instead. 

 

For some reason, it still doesn’t hit him until later that night. The lights are out, Ransom is asleep by the sound of his breathing, and Holster is reading a SidGeno fic on his phone because his self-control about closing AO3 at a reasonable hour is tenuous at best.

_”You’re in love with him,” says Flower._

_”I am not,” insists Sid. “We’re best friends._

_Flower levels him with a supremely unimpressed look. “You pretty much cannot have a conversation without bringing him up. You plan literally everything around each other.”_

Holster continues reading, but he’s not impressed with the plot. Like, literally, that could describe him and Rans.

_”Oh fuck,” says Sid. “I’m in love with him.”_

_Oh fuck,_ thinks Holster, _am I in love with Rans?_

He can’t ask Ransom, so he texts April.

_am I gay for Ransom?_

_I suspected,_ April admits. Holster lets his jaw drop.

_And you’ve just been letting me blunder along this entire time?_

_It’s bad form to tell your friends what their sexuality is_  
_Or that they’re in love with each other_

_Let’s not go jumping to conclusions_

_Not much of a jump_  
_Have you seen the way that boy looks at you_

_April please_  
_This is way too new to start wondering what Rans thinks_  
_It literally just hit me_

_You’re so fcking oblivious dude_

Holster does not dignify that with an answer. Twenty minutes later, he gets another message.

_It’ll be okay. You’ve been best friends for years. There’s no way this falls out where that stops being true. Think it through. Try not to avoid him and freak him out. When you’re ready, talk to him. Be honest about what you want and what you can accept._

He doesn’t sleep, either. He finds himself wondering about whether he would like to have sex with Ransom around one-thirty and decides to kill two birds with one stone and test the theory.

The theory holds water.

Now he’s ready to start wondering what Ransom thinks.

 

“Tater’s back on the ice in a no-contact jersey!” Ransom reports upon checking his phone at work the next day.

“Do you think he’s hot?” is what Holster says. Ransom gives him a weird look.

“I mean, yeah, dude. Like, obviously the dude’s ripped.”

“I mean, like. Would you have sex with him?” Well. Holster never claimed to be subtle. Ransom splutters at him.

“No? Dude, I’m straight, you know that.”

“I know you like girls. But like, dude, half our friends are bisexual. It’s a thing.”

Julia sticks her head in, and the subject is forcibly dropped. 

 

Holster’s desperately afraid that the car ride home will be awkward, and so he puts his Fall Out Boy playlist on as soon as they get in. They sing along at the top of their voices and it’s fine, they’re Ransom and Holster, they’ve made it through weirder and it never stops them from a Fall Out Boy singathon. When they get back to Haus 2.0, Holster shuts off the car but keeps the phone playing. It’s their turn to make dinner (well, it’s his turn to make dinner, but they always do it together), so they change back into street clothes and congregate in the kitchen, still singing.

 _I am the sand in the bottom half of the hourglass, glass, glass,_ sings Rans.  
_Oooooooooh_  
_I try to picture me without you but I can't_

“This song always reminds me of us,” he says. Holster’s chopping carrots, so he doesn’t notice Ransom freeze until he turns around to drop them into the frying pan and Ransom’s just standing there with the garlic in his hand.

“Rans?”

“The songs are about you,” says Ransom, turning slowly. “Holster. Fucking hell, Holster. _The songs are about you._ How the _fuck_ did I miss this?” Holster sets the carrots down and takes the garlic away before Ransom can drop it. Ransom’s breathing hitches and he backs into the wall.

“We got this, buddy,” says Holster. “It doesn’t matter what happens—” _shit, no, it’s not that it doesn’t matter—_ “We’re still us, we’re still us no matter what—” _unless he doesn’t want that? unless that freaks him out?_ “—come on, bud, breathe in for four for me, okay? One. Two. Three. Four.”

Ransom sucks in air, slowly, carefully, and for a second Holster thinks they’ll get through without this turning into a full panic attack, and then Ransom looks at him for the first time since it started. 

His breathing visibly sticks in his throat and he gapes for five— _one one thousand, two one thousand_ —terrifying seconds before he shuts his eyes, gasps in much too little air and starts to hyperventilate faster. _Shit,_ thinks Holster, _I’m making it worse._

“Do you need me not to be here, bro?” he asks quietly. “You want me to get Shitty?”

Ransom opens his eyes again and Holster isn’t so great at reading people’s expressions, but he swears he can read all his own pain and _how is this happening, in what universe am I causing Ransom to have a panic attack_ reflected back at him. “It’s okay, if that’s what you need,” he says in almost a whisper, and Ransom shuts his eyes again and slides down the wall slowly. He gives a short, sharp nod that breaks Holster’s heart.

He bolts out of the kitchen and toward Shitty and Lardo’s room. He has enough presence of mind to realize that Shitty and Lardo are probably having sex like they usually do when it’s his and Ransom’s night to cook, and instead of just busting through the door, he starts calling before he gets to it.

“Shits! Shits, I need help!”

“Bro? Two secs, bro, what’s wrong?” Holster reaches the shut bedroom door and waits impatiently for Shitty to open it, wearing only his boxers. Lardo’s wrapped up in the blanket behind him, and they both look worried.

“Ransom’s having a panic attack. You’ve dealt with Jack’s before, right?”

“Yeah, of course, where is he?”

“Kitchen.” Holster starts to lead him there, then remembers and stops. Shitty tosses him a worried glance over his shoulder, but doesn’t stop to ask questions, just hurries around the corner. 

A few seconds pass—not silently, because Holster can hear Shitty’s footsteps and then his low, calm voice, though he can’t make out the words. Holster can’t see him anymore, but he just stands there and stares off after them like he can help like that.

“There’s no way you wouldn’t help Ransom through a panic attack, even if you were furious with him,” says Lardo slowly. “So you can’t. So you’re partially or fully the reason for it.” A beat. “Bro, what did you _do_?”

“Fell in love with him, I think,” says Holster quietly and turns around to face her. She’s dressed again, in a purple dress that makes her look lighter, somehow, happier, or maybe just less angsty art student. He can’t read her expression exactly, but he thinks there’s sympathy there, and very little surprise.

 _“Bro,”_ she says, and comes over to wrap around him in a hug. He clings to her, desperate for the comfort to ease the misplaced guilt creeping up on him for not being able to help Ransom. “You’ll be okay,” Lardo promises. After a few more seconds, she tugs him over to the beanbag chair, manipulates him into it, and produces her phone from nowhere with Netflix open. He watches as she cues up an episode of Parks and Rec. Holster thinks of something and pulls out his own phone to text Shitty before realizing he almost certainly doesn’t have it on him.

“I hope somebody notices that the burner’s still on,” he says.

“Want me to check?” offers Lardo.

“Please?” She passes him the phone and drops a blanket on top of his legs before leaving. Less than a minute later, she’s back.

“They’re doing okay. And the stove’s off.”

“Thanks.” Holster finds a smile for her. Lardo’s too good for all of them.

They watch Parks and Rec for Holster doesn’t know how long—not long enough to finish the episode, but other than that he can’t guess—before Shitty comes back.

“He wants you,” is all he says. Holster shoves the phone back at Lardo, pauses long enough to drop a kiss on top of her head, and bolts out of the room and back to the kitchen.

Ransom is sitting where Holster left him, an open Gatorade beside him. There are dried tear tracks on his cheeks, but Holster can’t hear his breathing, and he seems calm. 

“Bro,” says Ransom, and holds out his arms. Holster practically does a header into the wall throwing himself into them and squeezing.

“I’m sorry I freaked you out,” he says, even though he’s pretty sure he didn’t actually do anything besides exist and apparently remind Ransom of love songs. Or the other way around. As it were. 

“If you’re allowed to apologize for that, I’m allowed to apologize for needing space,” says Rans.

“…Fair.”

They sit in silence for a moment before Holster feels the need to ask, “D’you wanna talk about it?”

“Not right now, I don’t think? Just. What you said before. We’re good, right? No matter what. We’re gonna be okay.”

“Of course, Rans. It’s us.”

 

Ransom doesn’t want to talk about it for several days. He spends a lot of time glued to his laptop, making concentrating faces, but he doesn’t panic-research. Holster catches part of a conversation with Shitty about something called the split attraction model that Ransom then explains to him later.

“So, you can be sexually attracted to people without being romantically attracted to them. And vice versa. And sometimes people who aren’t romantically attracted to each other form tight bonds, not quite dating and not quite platonic, and those are called queerplatonic relationships, and they usually don’t involve sex, but they can.”

It makes Holster’s head spin.

“I think I’m just plain bi,” he says, almost confused to realize it’s the first time he’s said it out loud. “Skewed straight.”

Ransom blinks at him. “You know, I’ve been so wrapped up in my own head that once I was sure we were okay, it literally didn’t occur to me to wonder about you. What you want.”

He’s looking at Holster expectantly, so Holster says, “Do you want to know now?”

“Yeah, I think I do.”

Holster sighs. He’s had a couple days to think about this, how he wants to phrase it. 

“I want whatever you want to give me. I’m attracted to you, sexually and romantically, but we’re friends first. If that’s all you ever want, or if you want this to be a, a queerplatonic?” He gets a nod, and continues. “A queerplatonic relationship, then that’s fine.” He shrugs. “You’re my favorite person, Rans.”

Ransom smiles softly. “I’m not totally sure what I’m going to call myself. It might be as simple as bi. Might be more complicated.” He takes Holster’s hand and Holster forgets to breathe for a few seconds. “I know I want to do everything we already do, but I also want to kiss you and call you my boyfriend and have a day every year we celebrate our relationship. I think I’d be interested in having sex with you.” He squeezes Holster’s hand and gives him a lopsided grin. It’s Holster’s favorite sight in the world. “You make the songs make sense.”

“I’d like that. If we did all that.” Holster’s eyes are brimming with tears now.

“Bro, if you waterworks, then I’ll waterworks!” Holster pulls him into a hug and holds on for dear life. 

This, he thinks, is when Sid and Geno kiss. But he doesn’t want to kiss Ransom right now, that would mean putting more space between them. And he knows Ransom, knows he needs more time to process. It’s really fine.

 

“I can still call myself bisexual if the way I’m attracted to girls doesn’t feel the same as the way I’m attracted to guys, right?” says Ransom a week later at the dinner table.

“Brah, of course,” says Shitty.

“Cool. I thought so, but. Y’know. Anxiety.” Holster knocks his knee into Ransom’s under the table. “So. I’m bi, then.”

“Thanks for trusting us with the moment, brah,” says Lardo, squeezing Ransom’s hand.

“Proud of you, my dude,” says Shitty, eyes shining.

 

Holster kisses Ransom two days later. 

They’re just sitting side by side on their phones, and Rans says, offhand, “Happy new year, by the way. I love you.” Holster looks at him, and how could he never have noticed how much he loves this man? Except that’s not right, he thinks immediately, he has always known how much he loves this man. He just didn’t notice he wanted to kiss him, didn’t know why all his objections melted away when Ransom said _live together another year,_ didn’t realize how important it was that their _together forever_ wasn’t another empty promise new college graduates make each other before they slowly stop finding time to text or call and become _somebody that I used to know._

“Can I kiss you?” he says, and Ransom gives a tiny inhale and nods. Holster leans in for their third kiss.

This time, it’s fireworks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WEE BIT OF BACKSTORY. In college, I was in a relationship that looked something like this:
> 
> One ace girl and one allo girl dating  
> Two ace girls and one allo girl dating  
> Turns out one of the ace girls is nonbinary  
> Allo girl breaks up with NB person but they both still date the ace girl  
> Turns out the NB person is also aro, allo girl and NB person are in a queerplatonic relationship, ace girl and NB person are in a queerplatonic relationship, ace girl and allo girl still dating  
> An Uproar over whether ace girl is in fact also aro and what the fucking difference is between romantic and platonic love and whether it actually matters as long as you want the same things. Relationship between ace and allo girls is shaken but remains, question remains unanswered.  
> Turns out the allo girl is NB too  
> Allo NB and ace NB still queerplatonic partners, get married, allo NB and ace girl still dating
> 
> And then we started splitting up and the third one came out as NB too, but the Point Is that I have a lot of feelings about the legitimacy of QPP Holsom and [that one fic where Rans is biromantic heterosexual and still with Holster](%E2%80%9D) and some people feeling a clear difference between romantic and platonic (even intense platonic) love and some people not, and the ability to have a fully functioning romantic relationship without sex—and a fully functioning friendship plus sex without romance. So I wanted to at least touch on all that.
> 
> What _does_ the difference feel like? To me? 
> 
> 1.  
> I read a line somewhere _[1]_ that went “I love you like a depressive loves hypomania,” and  
> I love some people like that,  
> like a craving,  
> a drug,  
> a need to be ever closer even when we’re right next to each other.  
> romantic love.
> 
> But em, em I love like  
> a cup of hot tea  
> after a long day of freezing with a  
> sore throat.
> 
>  _[1] “This is not a romantic poem” by Nimm,babyseraphim.tumblr.com_  
> ~”Definition of a Queerplatonic Partner” by me, [phoenixtawnyflower.blogspot.com](%E2%80%9D)
> 
> 2.  
> Castle: How do you know you're in love?  
> Beckett: All the songs make sense.
> 
> ~ _Castle,_ season 4, episode 3


	4. Epilogue: Two years later

Lardo clinks her spoon against a glass until the room quiets, and then stands.

“Hi, everyone,” she starts. “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Larissa, one of the maids of honor.”

“Because fudge heteronormativity!” 

“And that’s my boyfriend. But this isn’t about us, so he’ll be quiet now, won’t you?” 

In a quieter voice: “Sorry, Lards!”

“I’ve known Adam and Justin since my freshman year, their sophomore year, at Samwell University, when I became team manager to the Samwell Men’s Hockey Team.”

A cheer goes up, and not just from Shitty. Lardo rolls her eyes.

“It’s been my genuine pleasure to watch these two form the strongest bond of friendship I’ve ever seen. You will never meet two people who make ‘best friends’ look as good as these two did.”

Holster squeezes Ransom’s hand under the table and grins at him. Ransom grins back, and Holster forces himself not to get lost in his eyes. They’re only going to get one wedding speech out of Lardo.

“Time-honored tradition dictates that I tell you some embarrassing stories about the grooms. I’m here as Justin’s maid of honor, so I’ll tell you about how we had this one restaurant at school that had this ‘swawesome brunch place. Now, everybody knew about this brunch, okay? Our captain is the kind of antisocial, oblivious hermit of a hockey robot that gets a guy into the NHL hall of fame and has him kiss his boyfriend on live TV and think it’s not going to make a stir. No, Jack, we are never letting you live this down. Ever.”

“Isn’t it enough that you chirped me about this at my own wedding?” calls Jack from across the room.

“No, it is not. I will probably chirp you about this at my cousin’s wedding in August and she doesn’t even know you. Anyway, our illustrious captain knew about this awe-inspiring brunch, okay? But Justin somehow made it all the way to winter break of senior year without ever having heard of it and nobody can figure out how.”

“How long is it going to take for this to die?” asks Ransom quietly, but he’s laughing.

“Anyway, I love these two to bits, and I’m so happy they got their act together at last roughly two years ago so we could all be here today. And now, I present to you the other maid of honor, without whom this would have taken like another five years.”

Laughter. Lardo sits down, and April stands up.

“Hi, everyone. I’m April. Adam and I met in my sophomore, his junior year, and he was a dumbass.”

“Hey!” protests Holster. Nobody listens to him. They all seem to think this is funny.

Okay. It is pretty funny.

“He’s still a dumbass, but he tries really hard, and he listens when you tell him he’s being a dumbass, so I keep him around. We bonded over our loneliness when our best friends started dating. And honestly we’re so glad they did, because we probably never would have made friends otherwise, and Adam would still be bumbling around trying to figure out why he was jealous of Justin’s celebrity crush on a _different_ pro hockey player here today, because what even is my life.”

More laughter. Tater winks exaggeratedly. 

“Like Larissa said, Adam and Justin started out with an inspiring level of best friendship that naturally transformed into a bond of love that surprised absolutely nobody except them. But they helped me get together with my amazing girlfriend, so I guess we’re square. I’m pretty sure you’ve actually been married for like five years, but you made it official today and I’m super proud to know you. Let’s give it up for Adam and Justin.”

A round of applause. Holster stands up and sweeps her into a hug.

“Why you gotta drag me like that,” he complains, but he’s grinning too hard to sell it. 

She gives him her tiny, real smile. “What are best friends for, huh?”

“See if I show you any mercy when you get the guts to propose to March.”

“What makes you think I’m dumb enough to let you give the toast at my wedding?”

He hugs her again. 

“Aw, Holster. I love you, man.”

His eyes well up. She doesn’t tell him that often.

“Adam Birkholtz, I demand a hug,” says Lardo from behind him, and he lets go of April enough to sweep her in too. Ransom piles himself over their backs.

“GROUP HUG!” hollers Shitty.

“Okay, I’m out,” says April, and wriggles her way out from the cuddle pile, but she’s still smiling. 

“And now, will the happy couple please make their way to the floor for the first dance,” says the DJ.

_They say we are what we are,_  
_But we don't have to be,_  
_I'm bad behavior but I do it in the best way,_  
_I'll be the watcher (watcher) of the eternal flame,_  
_I'll be the guard dog of all your fever dreams,_  
_I am the sand in the bottom half of the hourglass (glass, glass)_  
_(Ooooooh)_  
_I try to picture me without you but I can't_


End file.
